If you were unable to attend our January 9th meeting, you missed out on another great tax update by Shawn Gagnon, CPA. Shawn let us know about the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011, an overview of some lingering 2010 Tax Acts, a reminder of what's coming, the HIRE Act, What to Watch out for and some new stuff on the 1040 form, Business issues, Business Travel Perks, Standard Deductions and Retirement Plan Contributions, IRS Trends, and a couple Funnies along with Humorous Court Cases. As you can tell, she always has a lot to talk about, and always finds a way to fit it into an hour.

For our February meeting we have Benjamin I. VandenBerghe, Attorney, from Montgomery Purdue Blankinship & Austin PLLC. Mr. VandenBerghe will be speaking to us about Employment Law. Dinner will be Orange Chicken with Steamed Rice and Stir Fry Vegetables or a salad choice, Chicken Oriental. Since we had to reschedule our Dessert Auction, we felt the February meeting would be a great choice since it is the day before Valentine's Day! Make sure to bring a couple extra dollars to bid on your favorite dessert and to support a good cause. Monday, February 13th, 5:30 p.m. at the LaQuinta Inn, Tacoma, just off I-5 at Portland Avenue. For reservations e-mail reservations@aswatacoma.org or call Mary Mobley at 253-851-4868. Reservations must be received no later than 6 p.m. on the Thursday before the meeting. We reserve the right to and WILL BILL for non-cancellations.

Our April meeting is going to be our Guest Event this year. We are encouraging everyone to invite at least one guest. We will be sending out invitations to local CPA firms and other Accounting businesses. We are also going to invite the local area colleges, that way we can combine our Student Night with the Guest Night. So make sure to get the word out to all your accounting and business friends about our April 23rd Guest Night. 

We still have a lot of planning to do for our Regional Conference, so if you have some free time to spare please ask us what you can do to help. We need all the help we can get! Adele and a couple other Board Members have been working hard finding our location so we can start putting our venue together. The Seattle Regional is coming up real soon and by attending their conference, it will help show us what we need to do to make ours just as successful. The Seattle Northwest Regional Conference is May 18th and 19th at the Cedarbrook Lodge.

Our Facebook page still needs more members to 'like' our page, so if you have not already done so, please go the the Tacoma Chapter's Facebook page and click on the 'like' button. Also, join us on Linked In!

I sure hope everyone can put some time aside and join us on February 13th for Employment Law and our annual Dessert Auction! As always, I hope to see you all there!

Susan